Ten full sized 3D printed buildings in Shanghai

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Back in 2008, University of Southern California Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis said new technology will soon allow massive 3D printers to build entire multi-level houses in under a day.

Nextbigfuture covered Contour Crafting in the USA back in 2008 and other companies in Europe who have talked about using large inkjet like printers to use cement as ink to make buildings. However, the US and European companies had not made complete full size buildings.

A group of ten 3D printed houses, 200 square meters (2153 square feet) each, recently appears in Shanghai, China. These building were created entirely out of concrete using a gigantic 3D printer, and each costs only 30,000 RMB ($4,800).

3ders.org reports that the company behind these 3D printed building, Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co, said it has for years been working on developing the system and its materials. The company owns 77 national patents of construction materials, such as glass fiber reinforced gypsum and special glass fiber reinforced cement.

WinSun’s 150(L) x 10(W) x 6.6(H) m gigantic 3D printer is capable of printing entire building within hours. The ‘ink’ it used is based on high-grade cement and glass fiber. Like traditional 3D printers, the system carefully spills out those materials layer by layer, consistently building upward.

Youtube Contour Crafting videos

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